Gondar. Architecture and Urbanism for Italy’s Fascist Empire

Gondar, Ethiopia, expanded dramatically in the late 1930s as a colonial administrative center for Italian East Africa. David Rifkind shows how urban design and architecture functioned in Gondar between 1936 and 1941 as key tools of Italian colonial policy. Italian urbanism throughout the fascist era illustrates the disquieting compatibility of progressive planning and authoritarian politics, and in Gondar modern urban design was used to define imperial identity for both Italian settlers and African colonial subjects. Gondar: Architecture and Urbanism for Italy's Fascist Empire documents the striking sensitivity to topography and historical preservation that Italian designers brought to their colonial mission as well as the skill with which they adapted to the material and political challenges of working in Italy's overseas dominions.

Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians (December 2011), 492-511.

2012 Society of Architectural Historians Founders’ Award for best article by an emerging scholar in the previous two years.